ATOC 5051, Fall 2007 — Notes & Calendar

ATOC 5051: Introduction to Physical Oceanography

Or, Notions for the Motions of the Oceans. This is a core course for graduate students covering the basic tools needed for oceanography. Observational, dynamical, numerical, and descriptive methods are discussed and used to get a sense of the historical and contemporary understanding of the motions of the oceans.

You can access the syllabus, proceedings, class notes, and class files.

Class Meetings and Notes

This webpage was reconstructed from memory & notes after the course was taught, as Blackboard proved deficient.

Week	Tuesday	Thursday	Reading Chapters	Assignments
1	8/28: Vast & Diverse	8/30: Exploration	Stewart 1, 2, 6 Tomczak & Godfrey 2	Assgn. 1 Plans 8/29
2	9/04: Modern Observations	9/06: S, T, p, Density	Vallis 1.1-1.3 Siedler et al. 2.1, 3.1-3.3 Emery et al. 6 Sverdrup et al. 10	Assgn. 1 Due 9/07
3	9/11: Estuarine Budgets (V&S)	9/13: Estuarine Budgets (T)	Gill 1, 2 Stewart 5 Emery et al. 5	Assgn. 1 Review 9/12 Assgn. 2 Plans 9/14
4	9/14: Global Budgets	9/16: Thermodynamics & Pot'l Density	Vallis 1	Assgn. 2 Due 9/17
5	9/25: Momentum	9/27: Momentum & Rotation	Pedlosky 1, 2	Assgn. 2 Review 9/26 Assgn. 3 Plans 9/28
6	10/02: Taylor-Proudman	10/04: Turbulence, Friction & Ekman	Cushman-Roisin 5 Stewart 9, 12	Assgn. 3 Due 10/05
7	10/09: Ekman	10/11: Geostrophy	Vallis 2	Assgn. 3 Review 10/10 Assgn. 4 Plans 10/12
8	10/16: Rotating Tank	10/18: Rotating Tank	Vallis 2	Assgn. 4 Due 10/19
9	10/23: Sverdrup	10/25: Munk & Stommel	Cushman-Roisin 8	Assgn. 4 Review 10/24 Assgn. 5 Plans 10/26
10	10/30: Inertia & Luyten, Pedlosky, Stommel	11/01: Thermal Wind from Vorticity		Assgn. 5 Due 11/02
11	11/06: Boussinesq, Thermal Wind, Margules	11/08: Isopycnal Layer Models	Cushman-Roisin 12	Assgn. 5 Review 11/07 Assgn. 6 Plans 11/09
12	11/11: Bill Large	11/13: PV & Rossby Adjustment		Assgn. 6 Due 11/16
13	11/20: Fall Break	11/22: Fall Break		Fall Break
14	11/27: Waves: Dispersion, Group & Phase Velocity	11/29: Gravity, Poincare, and Kelvin Waves	Cushman-Roisin & Beckers 9	Assgn. 6 Review 11/28 Assgn. 7 Plans 11/30
15	12/04: Markus Jochum	12/06: Rossby Waves	Cushman-Roisin & Beckers 9	Assgn. 7 Due 12/07
16	12/11: Baroclinic Waves	12/13: Summary		Assgn. 7 Review 12/12

Web Resources and Texts

Robert H. Stewart's Introduction to Physical Oceanography
Web-distributed basic but comprehensive textbook.

Tomczak and Godfrey's Regional Oceanography: An Introduction
Tomczak and Godfrey's nice textbook.

Lynne Talley's SIO 210: Intro to Physical Oceanography
Lynne Talley's nice website for a similar class to ATOC5051.

Ferrari and Joyce's MIT 12.808: Intro to Physical Oceanography
Ferrari and Joyce's nice website for a similar class to ATOC5051.

AGU/GRL Article Length Tool
This is an automated article length calculator for AGU. All assignments for this class must pass the GRL length calculation..

Cushman-Roisin's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Chapters 5, 8, 12.

Cushman-Roisin and Beckers's Introduction to Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
.

Emery, Talley, and Pickard's Descriptive Physical Oceanography
Chapters 5, 6.

Adrian Gill's Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics
Chapters 1, 2, 3.

Joe Pedlosky's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Chapters 1, 2.

Sverdrup, Johnson, and Fleming's The Ocean
Chapter 10.

Siedler, Church & Gould's WOCE Volume,
The Ocean: Circulation and Climate
Chapters 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3.

Geoff Vallis's Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics
Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4.

Wunsch's The Ocean Inverse Problem
Chapter 2.

Useful websites for matlab and idl.

Image from Siedler et al. 2001.